The Ghost who Loved
by NetRaptor
Summary: When a ghost named Neko fails to heal his Guardian, she falls ill with a strange Hive infection that begins to change her into a thrall. Neko turns to the awakened Traveler to beg for help, but the Traveler's cost may be higher than Neko can pay.
1. Chapter 1: Accident

All Ghosts love their Guardians. It's part of who we are. When we were sent out into the world, we had a picture inside us of the lovely spark of personality, of soul, that we were destined to bond to. Some of us searched for years.

I was lucky enough to find my Guardian early on in the City age. She was a tough, feisty woman named Kari who had died in the Battle of Six Fronts. When I resurrected her in the Light as a Guardian, she was a fierce a warrior as the Tower had ever seen.

Kari took the Warlock discipline. She used the power of the Light to devastate our enemies from a distance - and she was quite handy with a rifle, too.

I was with her through a passionate romance and marriage to another Guardian ... and I was with her when he was cut down by the Hive, his ghost destroyed. After that, Kari changed. The joyful, living part of her shut down. She became cold and grim, and took any mission that involved destroying the Hive.

That was how I failed her.

I, her ghost, whom she nicknamed Neko, failed her in a split second during a battle. Perhaps that was how her husband had died, too - that one, tiny mistake that changes the course of a firefight.

The Hive had captured a derelict space cruiser and were fitting it with their foul breeding chambers, preparing an invasion force against Earth. Kari and I were part of a fire team sent to neutralize the threat. Translation: kill everything and blow the ship.

We were down in the ship's belly, knee-deep in black slime, destroying egg sacs. I remained phased within Kari's armor at all times, healing from the inside, mending the little cuts and holes that might have become catastrophic suit failures if left unattended. Neither of us spoke much. We were both doing our jobs.

Then one of the Hive wizards appeared, shaking the walls with its awful screech. It flew along the ceiling, hurling energy bolts at us.

Kari threw down a healing rift, which was like a great glowing bubble of Light that healed her almost as quickly as I did. I had a breathing space. I popped out of phase and scanned for more egg pods and spotted some in the darkness at the far end of the room. "More eggs, back there."

"I see them." Kari left the healing rift, ducked behind a bulkhead, and reloaded her rifle.

A spike-laden grenade bounced into our hiding place.

It happened so quickly, and I didn't phase in time. The grenade exploded. A piece of shrapnel cut me down. I fell out of the air and remembered nothing else.

* * *

I awoke to find three sober-looking Guardians bent over me. A bright light illuminated me from above, and most of my core and shell were scattered around me. They worked over me with tiny tools designed specifically for ghost maintenance.

I didn't see Kari.

Panic ripped through me. I had been damaged! Had she died without me to heal her? That grenade!

"Kari!" I exclaimed. "Where's my Guardian?"

I tried to hover, but one of the other Guardians cupped his hand over me and held me down. "Calm down, little light. She's over here, resting. Let us put you back together so you can mend her."

"Don't call me little light," I snapped. "Only my Guardian can call me that, and I don't much like it from her, either."

In reality, any term of endearment Kari used for me was perfectly fine.

"Neko," Kari's voice said from nearby. "Calm down. I'm all right."

Hearing her voice reassured me. She sounded weak, but alive. I settled down and stopped trying to fire my repulsors. "What happened? Did we defeat the Hive?"

"Yes," she replied. Her voice shook. Worry gnawed me.

"I should say we did," one of the other Guardians said. His ghost was watching my reassembly closely, and muttering instructions on which part went where.

Another Guardian chimed in, "Kari cleaned out the whole nest by herself. We found her at the rendezvous, shredded and carrying her ghost, but man, she owned face."

" _Shredded_?" I shrieked. I almost made it off the table before they pinned me down.

"Don't upset him like that," Kari said. "Neko, I'm fine, really."

I was nearly frantic enough to try phasing to get off that workbench and return to my Guardian. But another ghost flew down and said, "Listen. We understand."

I looked up into his glowing blue eye, identical to my own. One of my brothers.

He continued, "You're no good to her if you kill yourself trying to fly around with half your core exposed. Let them repair you."

We ghosts understood each other. Only ghosts knew what it was like to bond to a foolish, courageous, lovable, maddening human. I closed my eye and submitted to the deft hands of the Guardians as they reassembled my core and replaced my shell - a new shell, too. My old one must have been completely trashed. Their ghosts made sure the repairs were exactly right before they let me off the table.

As soon as they released me, I shot into the air, looking for Kari.

She sat on a bench against the wall nearby, her arms wrapped around her torso. Her white robe was torn full of holes, and the armor beneath was punctured. Blood had made long tracks in the fabric, running down her torso and legs and puddling on the floor. She smiled at me, and her face was wan from pain.

I made a sound I'd never made before. It was a deep groan that broke on a sob. Around me, the other Guardians turned away, summoning their own ghosts, affected by my grief.

I swept Kari with a healing beam, up and down, mending her wounds. I looked deep into her and saw the leaking lung, the punctured liver, the internal bleeding. I healed them carefully, restoring each layer of damage, rebuilding her as I did during a resurrection.

A resurrection would have been easier. I could bring Kari back from a death blow within seconds. But this time, I had been out of commission for hours. She had been allowed to suffer, and it was my fault. A Guardian didn't suffer nearly as much between death and rebirth.

The others went to the ship's cockpit and left us alone. I healed Kari until her wounds were gone, and still I swept her with Light, over and over, trying to erase the hours of pain she'd endured because of my mistake.

She lifted me out of the air and held me in both hands. "Neko," she whispered, "stop."

I gazed into her eyes, blue-brown, my beautiful Guardian. "I failed you," I whispered. "I let myself be cut down and left you alone."

"It was an accident," she said, kissing my shell and holding me against her cheek. "I'm so glad you're not dead. When I saw you fall ... and I picked you up and you didn't revive ... Neko, my heart stopped. I can't face being a Guardian with no ghost. Please, please, be more careful. I can't lose you, too."

"I'll stay phased at all times during battle," I replied, choking up, which in a ghost was purely psychological. "I'll never let you suffer again."

She held me for a long time, rocking back and forth, stroking my shell. Ghosts can't cry, not really, but I made a good approximation of it. We don't do it very often, but when it comes to losing our Guardian - or almost doing so - we break down. It's part of the empathy built between a ghost and a Guardian, and it does have drawbacks. After all, there's nothing like failing the person you love most in all the world.


	2. Chapter 2: Infection

Later, we returned to our own ship for the long flight home. I remained phased, penitent and brooding.

Kari sat back in the pilot seat and removed her helmet, shaking out her short, auburn hair. "Neko," she called, pulling off her gloves.

I phased into reality. A ghost resembles a star-shaped robot, four points around a central core with an eye in it. When I'd been repaired, she had them equip me with a blue shell with the pattern of a rampant lion across it. I looked good.

"Yes, Guardian?" I said.

She pulled off her gloves and held out her left hand. "What is this?"

A black blister the size of a hen's egg had risen on the back of her hand. Black lines spread out from it under the surface of the skin. Somehow, I had missed healing it when I had rebuilt her insides.

"Foul Hive poison," I said, tracing it with a concentrated healing beam.

Some of the discoloration faded, but the black blister remained.

In disbelief, I swept it again. Again, my healing beam had no effect.

"That grenade," Kari said. "I felt a piece of shrapnel pierce my hand. You healed me, but ... what is this?"

"I've never seen anything like it," I murmured. "I'm so sorry, Kari. I failed you again."

"These things happen," she said, waving her other hand dismissively. She pulled out her combat knife. "I'll burst this blister and let it drain. No problem."

"I don't think that's a good - "

Kari lanced the blister. Black, foul-smelling glop oozed out. She cursed and fumbled for the first aid kit under the seat, which we had never used. She wiped up the black stuff and sprayed the burst blister with antiseptic. "Now heal it."

I hit it with another healing beam. The blister flattened and smoothed over, but there was still a hint of darkness beneath the skin.

"Good enough," Kari said, and set a course for Earth.

I watched and said nothing, despite my misgivings.

* * *

I assumed that upon arriving back at the Last City, Kari would seek proper medical attention. She might have, too, given time. But we arrived home just as the Red Legion attacked the city and caged the Traveler, shutting off our Light.

This devastated Kari and nearly killed me. The source of my vitality was cut off. I barely had the strength to phase myself, let alone keep her healed properly, and there would be no speedy resurrections.

But Kari had been a soldier before she had been a Guardian. She and a bunch of others holed up in the Crucible arenas.

The Crucible was a combat sport played by Guardians. When you can resurrect after any death and heal any injury, blood sport becomes socially acceptable. Ostensibly for training Guardians, the Crucible was the main entertainment of our city, with popular teams and lots of back alley gambling.

The arenas themselves were a set of disused industrial complexes with lots of blind corners, catwalks, and deep shadows. Kari had been a top-ranking fighter at one time. She and the other teams knew every inch of the entire place.

The Cabal didn't.

Wisely, instead of making a last stand there and having the Cabal bomb it, they hid in the tunnels and secret rooms. When Legion patrols passed through, the Guardians haunted them, casting phantom lights, making noises with no apparent source, and rearranging Cabal equipment like poltergeists. I, myself, became adept at flying around with a black sheet draped over me.

The Legion soldiers grew terrified of our arenas. Their commanding officers punished them, forcing their troops to patrol, but the soldiers soon only kept to the well-lit areas.

The Guardians collected supplies and survivors into the secret places. Their goal was to build up an army and undermine the city's captors from the shadows. Therefore, when Zavala himself led a charge to retake the city, we joined in, too.

Then the miraculous happened and the Traveler awakened, slaying our enemies and healing us all in one mighty flash of Light. It was a time of miracles.

We began rebuilding the City and gathering survivors. The Tower was wrecked, so we relocated operations further down the wall, around a disused hanger.

A month slipped by, then two. In all the joyous bustle and work, Kari never remembered to have a doctor examine her hand. I confess that I forgot about the blister. She kept her gloves on most of the time and acted perfectly normal.

Then one day, Kari awakened with a fever that I couldn't heal.

She lay wrapped in blankets in her bunk, soaked with sweat, but shivering. I hovered over her anxiously. My healing beam couldn't touch this fever, not even to reduce it.

"Let me see your hand," I told her.

Kari untangled her arm from the blankets and held it out. I recoiled in horror.

The blister had become a spiderweb of black engulfing her whole hand. The nails on two fingers had turned withered and twisted-looking. I tried to heal it, but nothing happened.

"Fetch a doctor," she murmured to me.

I hesitated only a second - then I shot away through the tower, phasing through walls and obstacles, heading for the medical ward downstairs. Kari was ill. Guardians never took ill - their ghosts kept them healed. What was this awful blackness, this thing that my Light couldn't touch?

I might lose my Guardian after all.

The horror of this consumed me, driving me onward, faster and faster. I arrived at the medical ward in a babbling panic. "My Guardian - her hand - she needs help. Someone help me! I can't heal - don't know why - "

The sight of a ghost, alone and incoherent, lit a fire under the medical staff. In a few minutes, they summoned a doctor and two nurses. They followed me back upstairs. Thankfully, nobody asked questions on the way. I was too upset to navigate and talk at the same time.

I led them into Kari's room and flew to her, caressing her with a healing beam that did nothing. "It's all right now. I brought help."

She rolled her head sideways to look at them, sweat gleaming on her face. Observing how out of breath they were, she said, "I'm sorry if my ghost inconvenienced you. He gets a little excited."

"Excited!" I exclaimed. "Show them your hand! I can't heal this and I don't know what to do."

"A wound a ghost can't heal?" the doctor said, exchanging glances with his companions.

Kari held out her blackened hand.

Dead silence filled the room. The doctor and nurses stared, eyes wide. One nurse cringed backward.

"Where did you get that?" the doctor breathed.

"Hive," Kari replied. "Shrapnel wound that wasn't healed."

I shrank my facets together a little tighter. My fault.

The doctor pulled out a radio. "This is Doctor Von. I need a quarantine chamber prepared immediately. I have a patient with a level four Hive infection. Clear the hallway of all personnel and patients."

 _Quarantine. Level four Hive infection_. Each word hit me like a hammer blow.

Kari must have read my expression. She touched me with the fingertips of her good hand. "It's not your fault."

I couldn't answer, couldn't argue. It was very much my fault, and I was entering a ghost's worst nightmare - that of being unable to save their Guardian from a final death.


	3. Chapter 3: The bargain

The quarantine room was a plastic box with a bed in it. Outside that was another room made of flexible plastic sheeting, assembled hastily by medical staff, equipped with an airlock. A stack of scrubs and sterile gloves stood on a table inside. Doctors dressed and undressed inside the clean room. No gear left the quarantine space once it had entered.

I floated in the corner of the inner plastic box, silent, impotent, useless. Doctors injected countless drugs into Kari's hand and arm, trying to gain ground on the infection swirling through her bloodstream.

But the infection was stronger than their drugs. Day after day it crept up Kari's arm to her elbow, then toward her shoulder. Her hand curled, the skin hardening. It pulled inward on itself, the inner layers of the skin compressing, until all that remained was a hardened outline of muscle and bone.

It was the arm of a Hive thrall.

I watched in anguished silence as they amputated the monstrous limb. My poor Kari lay in bed, mutilated and changed, her poisoned arm now only a bandaged stump at the shoulder.

She faced the ordeal with the silent bravery reserved for battlefields. But when we were alone, she confided to me that it was only a matter of time before she joined her husband in the Light.

Our hope that the amputation had ended the infection faded as more black patches appeared across her neck and chest. The skin withered, each patch spreading by the day. The doctors grew desperate. Some whispered of attempting to capture a SIVA nanite swarm and reprogramming it.

"Don't let me turn," Kari begged Dr. Von. "Put a bullet in my head before I become a thrall. Please."

Dr. Von said heavily, "It may yet come to that."

When he left, Kari looked at me, her eyes still bright despite the blackness creeping up her cheeks. "That's an idea. When you resurrect me, you recreate my body from scratch, right? Wouldn't that remove this infection?"

"I tried," I said in a low voice. "The arm they removed - I tried to regrow it. Resurrection works by re-polarizing the quantum data ..." Seeing her eyes glaze, I hurried on. "The point is, your flesh is corrupted to the quantum level. I couldn't regenerate you as anything other than a thrall. I deconstructed and revived that infected arm three times, Kari. It stayed the same."

She turned her face away from me and stared at the wall.

My heart had broken so many times already. It broke again in that moment. I was her ghost, and I could do nothing. I was failing her again.

That night, the voices began.

Kari had nightmares - terrible nightmares that she awoke from, screaming. As the Hive infection progressed, the voices of the evil aliens grew in her mind. She repeated the things they said to me and to the doctors. They called to her, promising power and immortality. In between, they gloated at having infected a Guardian, and promised to teach her the Sword Logic to use against her fellow Guardians.

As the infection spread across her face and into her limbs, the doctors began to whisper of the best methods to put her down humanely.

That was when I snapped.

* * *

The thought had been growing in my mind that only the Traveler could help Kari now. The Traveler - the mysterious moon-like entity that floated in the sky above the Last City, source of Light for all ghosts and Guardians, and my birthplace.

Kari was slipping away, and none of us could help her. I had to do something, and that night, I did.

I phased through the walls of the medical wing in a series a short teleports. Once I gained the free air above the City, I flew straight toward the Traveler, teleporting to gain speed. The pain inside me drove me on.

Only ghosts who had lost their Guardians ever returned to the Traveler. They were never seen again. It was supposed that they merged back into the Great Consciousness, into the Light from whence they came. There was every chance that by going to the Traveler, I, too, might be assimilated before I ever said a word. And oh, how part of me yearned for that: to rejoin the Light and never see Darkness again.

But Kari was my anchor. I was doing this for her and I would not assimilate. Not unless I utterly failed her, watched her die, and became a severed ghost.

It took me an hour to reach the Traveler. I paused a few feet from its gleaming white hull and steadied myself. "Kari," I told myself. "Think of Kari." And I phased inside.

The awakened Traveler was a seething, swirling ball of living Light. Inside was the metal structure that formed the sphere itself - yet the structure only gave shape to the Light, just as a living brain is only the medium that the consciousness flies through.

The Light recognized me, reached out to me, curled around me. Its touch was warm and welcoming, and within it I heard the joyful voices of thousands of other ghosts, long since passed on. So it wasn't complete assimilation. They lived on inside the mind of the Traveler.

The Light tugged at my spark, inviting me to join them. But I resisted. "No! My Guardian still lives. She needs your help, Traveler! Please, I beg you!"

My voice echoed into the Light. The chattering ghost voices hushed, their attention turned to me. I felt as if I had stepped onto a stage, addressing an audience I hadn't known existed.

The Light shrank and solidified into the shape of another ghost. But this one had a golden glowing eye. Streamers of white light radiated off in all directions from between its facets.

The Traveler, itself, had come to speak with me.

I bowed, as well as a ghost can bow. "Thank you for speaking with me, Great One."

"Child Ghost," the Traveler said. Its voice was as warm and kind as its own Light. "You are heavily burdened by fear for your Guardian. Tell us your troubles."

I launched into the story, explaining my many failures that had led to Kari's impending doom. It was lovely to address the Traveler in such a familiar form. But it was dreadful to know that a vast audience was listening in, sometimes murmuring to each other.

When I finished my tale, there was a brief silence. The Traveler turned and gazed into the Light. There, almost lost in it, were the outlines of the dead ghosts who had been listening. They made a vast crowd, pressed close together to better listen to me.

"Well?" the Traveler asked them. "All of you had Guardians once. Is this plea just?"

What followed was overwhelming and humiliating. Those ghosts picked my story apart, analyzing every action, every bad decision I'd made, suggesting alternate courses of action that hadn't occurred to me at the time.

"Why didn't you insist she see a doctor upon your return?"

"Why did you let the war distract you from the health of your Guardian?"

"You had months of opportunity during the rebuilding. Did you never once inspect her wound?"

"Shrapnel? You let yourself be knocked out by shrapnel?"

"She had a healing rift nearby and didn't use it?"

I pulled my facets together so tightly that they grated together. The Traveler said nothing, merely floated regally there among its streamers of Light, allowing the discussion to continue. Every word, each new argument, made me want to phase away and never return. I knew I had failed - I didn't need a vast assembly of my peers to define exactly how much.

"Well ..." I murmured to the Traveler, "I guess I'll just ... go back to Kari now."

The Traveler instantly gave me its attention and the other ghosts fell silent. "Why?"

"Well ..." Embarrassment burned inside me, on top of the guilt and grief. "I'm already a failure of a ghost ... so I might as well just ... just return and see Kari through to the end." I choked on the last few words. I turned to depart, but one of the Traveler's light streamers wrapped around me. Slowly it turned me back around to face the Traveler and my brethren.

"You see, children," the Traveler said, "this child of the Light carries a burden greater than most. He loves his Guardian with a devotion greater than any I ever intended. Only once in a very great while do I see love like this."

The other ghosts remained silent. I looked and realized they were gone. The Traveler and I were alone.

"They have had their lesson," the Traveler murmured. "Now. I am willing to assist you, Child Ghost, if only because of the love you bear. But the price will be costly."

"Tell me plainly," I begged. "What will it take to heal her?"

The Traveler made a sound like a sigh. The Light streamers drooped and disappeared. "I must not only break down her body. I must take it back in time to before the infection began. Only from an earlier point can I spin out a fresh, untainted body for your Guardian. However, such a thing will destroy her spark."

I held back a cry of despair. Her spark was her spirit, the life force that persisted through resurrections. To destroy the spark was to truly end her life.

"However," the Traveler went on, "you may attempt a thing which no ghost has ever yet tried. You may take her spark into your core. You must hold it there as I rebuild her body, and you must not let it go out. But doing such a thing may cost you your own spark."

"Would I join you here?" I asked timidly. "If I ... if I died."

The Traveler had no real face, but its Light touched me with the warmth of a smile. "You would receive a hero's welcome."

Here was a way to save Kari. It might possibly kill me, but as I had seen, ghosts didn't really die. I had hope upon hope.

"Yes," I said at last. "I'll do it. And both of us will live."


	4. Chapter 4: Sparks

We returned to the Tower in a swirl of the Traveler's power. One moment we were inside the Traveler, and the next, we were inside the quarantine box, beside Kari's bed.

Her blackened limbs were tied down. She fought the restraints until the bed rocked. One of her eyes glowed a sick Hive green. As we entered, she ceased struggling and gazed at us, panting.

"Light," she hissed. "We will extinguish your Light, Traveler." Then she seemed to return to herself. She drew a deep breath and looked at the two of us, blinking her mismatched eyes. "Neko, where have you been? And who is this?"

"Kari," I whispered, tracing her with a futile healing beam. "This is the Traveler. It's come to heal you."

She gazed at the Traveler ghost, hope brightening her withered face. "Is it true?"

"Yes, my Guardian," the Traveler said in paternal tones. "Your ghost has agreed to hold your spark as I revert your body to its uncorrupted form. It will feel like you are dying. But you must remain calm. Trust me. Trust your ghost. Are you willing?"

"Yes, Traveler," Kari whispered, enraptured as if she beheld an angel. "Will it take long?"

"It will take a time," the Traveler replied. "But time is a fluid thing, with many whorls and eddies. If both of you endure to the end, you will live." It turned to me. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Traveler," I said.

The Traveler ghost scanned Kari with its own beam of Light. It beam drew a glowing, golden shadow of Kari out of her body. Her body convulsed and went rigid, the eyes staring.

The Traveler guided the glowing shadow to me. I caught it in my own beam and drew it in.

Kari's spark entered my core with a cry. "Neko! Is this you?"

"Yes, Kari," I whispered. "Remember - stay calm. You're safe."

On the bed, Kari's corrupted body dissolved into red particles that swirled and vanished. The Traveler ghost vanished, too. I was alone with Kari's spark in my core.

She was warm and beautiful, burning alongside my own spark. "Your core is so big and bright," she observed. "I had no idea!"

"We're both made of Light," I told her. "Size has no meaning when you remove mass."

She laughed - her old, natural laugh, which I hadn't heard since her husband died. "This is a miracle, Neko, and you make it sound so scientific. How did you persuade the Traveler to help me?"

I squirmed a little. The embarrassment of the ghost trial still hung in my mind like smoke. "Well, I ... I asked. And it said ..." I trailed off. She was so near, there in my core. At this level, our sparks were the same shape, the same brightness. It's one thing for a tiny robot to tell a human that they love them. It's quite another to say such things soul to soul.

"What did it say?" Kari prompted. "Neko, you can tell me. There's no point in keeping secrets now."

She felt it, too - that closeness we shared. I looked anxiously at the empty bed, but there was no sign of her new body.

"It said," I replied delicately, "that it was willing to help because I loved you so much."

Her spark flickered, as if a shiver had passed through her. "Oh, Neko."

"You asked," I said. "And here you are."

"Here I am," she repeated, as if stunned. "I know ghosts love their guardians. We take it for granted. But ... Neko ... this is something grand. Is this why you're able to hold my spark like this?"

"Yes. The Traveler said that no other ghost has ever dared try."

Her spark flickered again, dimming a little. I lent her Light from my own. "Calm down. You're wasting energy. Don't burn out."

She flared up bright once more. "Neko, you're wonderful. I never knew how wonderful until this minute. I was always a little embarrassed when you'd cry over me, but I never thought ..."

"You're my Guardian," I said. "When you hurt, I hurt. When you triumph, I triumph. And I've failed you so awfully, Kari. I'm trying to make it right."

She laughed, then sobbed. Her spark dimmed again, her emotion consuming the fragile energy that held her together. I mended her with more of my own Light.

"You're not a failure, Neko. You keep saying that, but you're not."

"I allowed you to catch the infection," I said. "I forgot to have you treated once we came home."

"You were shot down," she retorted. "Then the City was captured. Those things weren't your fault. You went to the Traveler for me, Neko. It's building me a new body. That's an amazing success."

Her spark wavered alarmingly, like a candle flame in a breeze. I caught it and stabilized it with my own. But a sense of tiredness settled through me. Her spark was now brighter than mine.

"We're not through this yet," I said. "I don't know how long the Traveler will be gone. Hush now. We need to conserve our energy."

We sat there, silent, for some time. My spark began to brighten again.

"I'm the failure," Kari murmured.

"What?" I said. "No, you're not. You're a wonderful Guardian."

"I should have protected you on that Hive ship," she said. "Instead, I let you be hurt. Some Guardian I am. Then I didn't take care of myself when I caught that infection. I've had months to get it treated, Neko, and I didn't. Now here we are, and we're so fragile. We could die in a second."

Her spark flickered and dimmed. I gave her my own Light, dimming my spark still further.

"Neko," Kari said, her voice sharp and alarmed. "Stop doing that. You're going out."

"Calm down," I whispered. "The more energy you spend, the more I spend to keep you alive."

"Neko ..." Her voice broke. She shivered beside me, trying to control herself. "Don't kill yourself for me."

"I'm trying not to," I replied. "I can't leave you without a ghost. But I have to keep you alive."

We sat in silence for a long while. My spark remained dim. I would need days of rest to recover from this. I was tired in a way I never had been before, not even after hours of firefights with Taken.

"Neko," Kari whispered, "I love you."

My core warmed and a little Light returned to my spark. "I always hoped you did."

"I never knew," she murmured. "I never knew you were like this inside. I thought ghosts were just ... robots."

"We have souls," I replied. "I thought all guardians knew that."

"I never thought about it," she said. "I've seen dead ghosts before, but I never realized they were ... they were truly dead."

"It's why I got so upset whenever we found one," I said.

I heard the smile in her voice. "I thought you were just a softie."

"I am," I replied. "But only toward the people I care about. And you."

She made a whimpering sound, not quite a sob. Again, her spark guttered. I gave her my Light to keep her bright. My spark dimmed to the dull red of an ember in a dying fire.

"Neko!" Kari cried. "Don't do that! You're putting out your own spark!"

I could barely hold myself in the air. I landed on the edge of a bedside table instead. That's when I noticed a flicker of blue light across the bed in the shape of a human body.

"The Traveler's coming back with you," I said.

We watched in excitement as the Light resolved into Kari's former body, before the infection, there in the quarantine room. The Traveler ghost appeared with it, phasing through time, bringing with it Kari's body stage by stage. First the skeleton, then the organs, then the muscles and skin. Both arms intact. No hint of the awful thrall infection. I wanted to leap in the air and cheer, but I was too weary.

In a few minutes, Kari's body was complete. The Traveler turned to me. "Do you have her spark?"

"Yes, Traveler."

In the second before I activated my beam to transfer her spark, Kari touched me with her own. It was the lightest of touches, like a kiss on the forehead, but I felt her love. It made my own spark brighten a little.

I passed her spark out of my core and back to the Traveler. It took her and gently laid her soul back into her body, the spark settling into her chest.

Kari gasped and her eyes flew open. She sat up, moving her arms and legs, looking at her hands - both hands - and touching her face. "Thank you, Traveler," she said, bowing to its ghost. The Traveler acknowledged with a nod.

Kari lifted me off the table and held me in her cupped hands. "Neko, dear Neko, please don't die."

My spark was so weak. The energy she had given me had powered the beam to transfer her spark. My eye flickered in time with my own waning power.

"Kari," I whispered, "I'm so sorry. I'm about to fail you one last time."

"No!" Tears trickled down her cheeks. She clutched me to her heart. "Traveler, can't you help him?"

But the Traveler ghost had disappeared, its mission complete. We were alone.

She held me up and gazed into my eye, stroking my shell. "Stay with me, Neko. There's got to be a way to save you."

"So tired," I murmured. Inside me, my spark ebbed a little lower. I had passed the point of no return, having given too much of my strength to my beloved Guardian.

"No," she whispered, watching my eye dim. "Please, no."

"Don't worry," I said, barely able to force the words out. "The Traveler ... will take me home. With the other ghosts. I'll ask ... I'll ask it to send you a new ghost."

My core and shell seemed so heavy. How had I ever flown around? I was made of lead.

"I don't want a new ghost," she sobbed, pressing her cheek against my shell. "I want you, Neko. I saw your heart, and it's so beautiful."

"All ghosts are like that," I whispered. "No ghost could fail to love you, Kari. You're the best Guardian."

My spark wavered, on the verge of extinction.

"I love you," I whispered one more time.

Kari looked into my eye just as it went out. Her cry of anguish echoed through me as I spiraled away into oblivion. Beyond that waited the Darkness, hungry and waiting.

But as the Darkness reached for me, Light flashed from the other direction. It drew me in, protecting me from the evil that lurked beyond.

Suddenly I was back inside the Traveler, surrounded by living Light and other ghosts. They cheered and welcomed me into their midst. I laughed and cried at once, pure delight sweeping me.

The Traveler ghost was there, too. It embraced me with Light. "Welcome home, dear child. I'm sorry the price of healing your Guardian was so high."

"It was worth it," I said fervently. "Kari is healed and whole. I would do it again, if I had to. But ... please don't leave her alone. Please send her another ghost in my place. She's a soldier, and she'll die without one."

Here, in the Light, as pure spirit, it was easier to communicate. The Traveler's smile soothed and healed me, restoring the energy I had expended. "Love is as strong as death," it said. "It burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers sweep it away. Not even the Darkness can stand before it."

The Traveler turned to the vast assembly of ghosts who crowded around us. "What is your opinion, children? Should I send this ghost, this beloved Neko, back to his Guardian?"

We debated the question. This time, I was part of the argument, and I argued fiercely that I should return. "A Guardian without a ghost is one step above dead," I said. "If not me, then the Traveler should send another. But Kari shouldn't be left alone."

"That's against the rules!" other ghosts argued. "One ghost, one Guardian. They live and die together."

"But Neko's love is as strong as death," another ghost observed. "We all loved our guardians, but not like this."

"Yes! Exactly like this!" another ghost retorted. "Don't minimize our pain and loss! We watched our guardians die, or died in our turn. None of us were sent back."

"None of you ever came to me for help while alive, either," the Traveler observed dryly.

The assembly fell silent. The ghosts looked at one another, ashamed.

I faced the Traveler. "Are there rules? Am I breaking some law about being sent back?"

"Just because something is customary doesn't mean it's law," the Traveler said. "My law is mercy. I saw how you struggled to keep Kari's spark alive, my little light. You sacrificed yourself without hesitation. I know that, should you return, you will continue to do so. And so, my question to you is, do you want to return to the world of shadow and darkness, to weeping over your Guardian as she suffers at the hands of our enemies?"

In that lovely place, surrounded by my sibling ghosts, in the presence of the Traveler itself, I was at peace. I was safe. There was no Darkness here, no stain, no evil. My spark yearned to remain there, forever at rest.

And yet ... Kari was alone in that world of Darkness, without the smallest light to cheer and comfort her.

"Send me back, please," I said. "When I return to the Light in death, Kari and I will come together."

The Traveler smiled. In the warmth and power of that smile, the Light surrounded me, rebuilding my physical core, my base shell, every part and component forming out of pure Light and hardening into matter.

And then ... I was sent back.

* * *

I phased into being in Kari's tiny dorm room. She was asleep in her bunk, curled up as if in pain. But there was no black infection, no fever. Perhaps it was simply grief. I swept her with a healing scan. Yes, she had let her health sink below ninety percent. I restored her, rejoicing in my ability to do so.

Then I scanned her tablet to update my time settings. Two whole months had passed since my death. Two months! It had felt like minutes. My poor Guardian had been alone all that time.

My heart aching, I flew to her and landed on the pillow beside her face. "Kari," I whispered. "Kari, I'm home."

She opened her eyes and gazed at me without comprehension.

"Eyes up, Guardian," I told her.

She sat up with a jerk, eyes wide. I flew into the air and hovered in front of her.

"Who are you?" she breathed.

"Neko," I replied. "The Traveler sent me back. It was a huge debate. I know I'm wearing my basic shell, so I'm not very fancy, but - "

She snatched me out of the air and hugged me fiercely. "Neko," she sobbed. "It is you! I've dreamed about you so many times, I thought it was another dream. You're not another ghost with his memories?" She set me back in the air and studied my eye.

"No, it's really me," I said. "The other ghosts were furious that the Traveler would send me back and they never had that chance. But then ... I don't think any of them ever asked."

"It's been two months," Kari murmured. "I've been assigned to tower guard duty. Without a ghost, they can't risk me in the field. I've been dying by inches."

"I healed you as soon as I arrived," I said, glancing around. The usually immaculate room had clothes and armor tossed everywhere. "You've stopped caring for yourself? For shame, Kari. I'm not that important."

"You are to me." She grabbed me and kissed my eye, then polished away the resulting smear with her sleeve so I could see again.

I laughed. "Don't do that."

She stood up and reached for a hairbrush on the desk. "Now you're back to kick my butt, I'd better make myself presentable."

"Yes," I agreed, watching her with a satisfied possessiveness. "You're still my Guardian, and I'm going to take care of you until we both die and see the Traveler face to face."

Kari's lower lip trembled. "But not for a long time?"

"Not for a very long time," I said.

The end


End file.
